III: The Empress
by Kyogre
Summary: Oneshot. Susanne finds out her brother and her husband are planning to send her son to die. She's not impressed, so it's off with their heads. Her actions send many a plan off track.


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Tales of the Abyss

Title: The Empress (III)

Author: Kyogre (Ana)

Summary: Susanne finds out her brother and her husband are planning to send her son to die. She's not impressed, so it's off with their heads.

Notes: Almost crack, really. Just something I wrote one evening. Yes, yes, I know that it doesn't quite end where I expected, but maybe there'll be a part 2.

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Susanne fon Fabre nee Lanvaldear was not a fool. She might have been weak, she might have been sickly, but she was still an heir of Kimlasca's royal bloodline, and she had learned how to play the court and the courtiers with the best of them.

From her birth, she had been treated like a fragile doll. An important piece in the political game, but only a pawn, to be played at someone else's will. Her parents had put her on display, but only at a safe distance. They let her see the world of the castle, but never beyond it (wouldn't do for her to get unsuitable ideas, after all).

Her brother – half brother, but these things happened, so unfortunate about the late Queen, such a beneficial match, the King's second wife – had carefully removed her even from the court (just in case, no need to have divisions in power and influence).

Her husband – arranged, of course – had taken one look at his poor sickly wife (her health _had _been declining) and all but locked her in their mansion. It was all for her sake, really, and he was absent because of his duties, naturally. (Did he really think she wouldn't notice his… indiscretions? She was no fool. She was not fool enough to think he cared for her. She was also not fool enough to think this was enough to risk their _political association_ over.)

Over the years, Susanne had become quite good at playing a meek, pale shadow of a woman whose only worth was the alliance she brought her husband and the future king she bore her country. Some days, she even forgot how to be anything else. Some warm, sunny days, sitting in the courtyard of the mansion and watching her precious son play with her dear niece, Susanne was content to be just the Duke's wife and Luke's mother.

Today was not one of those days.

"Master Van" had come to Baticul with news of a promotion, and Luke had taken off dogging his teacher's footsteps, first around the mansion, then up to the castle. Feeling a little lost without the precocious boy to occupy all their attention, Susanne and Natalia had settled to commiserate. Poor Natalia had poured her heart out to Susanne, telling her aunt all about how she had started her own lessons in the Lanvaldear style of archery in hopes of having more to share with Luke.

"Well, boys are just like that," Susanne had said, patting the girl's hand sympathetically. "They're a little foolish, you see. Please be patient with him, dear. He does love you very much."

Natalia had huffed, her sadness shifting to irritation. "But I cannot measure up to the allure of a sword, is that it? I am his fiancée! And yet he spends more time with that servant of his."

"Guy? Well, he's the closest to Luke in age, and a swordsman too," Susanne mused, while Natalia pouted, fidgeting with her ornate tea cup.

"What could be so great about swords, in any case?" Natalia mumbled, her speech still more proper and stilted than any child's should be. She had been locked up at the castle for too long – until Luke broke her out, as the case was.

"Nothing really. Boys – and men – are just silly like that," Susanne said, smiling a little secretively. She loved Luke dearly, but sometimes she wished for a daughter as well, a little girl to share all her _womanly_ secrets with. But, Susanne thought to herself, she was truly blessed, wasn't she? Natalia would be her daughter one day – so why not now? – and she couldn't leave the poor girl without a mother either.

It was a few years too early to say, "Nothing really. Men are just naturally drawn to long, hard things. It's all compensation, you see," all the same.

Finishing her tea and setting her cup down primly, Susanne leaned in conspiratorially. "But don't worry. He'll forget all about it when you pin him to a wall at fifty paces, before he can ever draw his sword."

"You believe I can?" Natalia wondered, determination already in her eyes.

"Of course. It worked quite well on all my would-be beaus," Susanne replied with a wink. "I may not look it, but I am a master of the Lanvaldear archery myself."

It had been years since Susanne had touched a bow, and the windy, overcast afternoon was not at all suited to archery practice for a beginner and a woman so out of shape, so the two of them had made due with only preparation and a promise to train together soon. But it was pleasant all the same, and it put her in a decidedly spirited mood.

That mood made it rather difficult to be meek and powerlessly consoling when Luke returned home distraught.

"They're going to make Master Van stop coming!" he told her, almost near tears, it seemed. Her dear son, always trying so hard to be calm and self-possessed like a true nobleman, had been beside himself.

Susanne hugged him – Luke hadn't even protested, for all his pride! – and tried to figure out what could have possibly happened.

"Master Van was promoted, so now Father and Uncle say he'll be too busy to come to Baticul to teach me," Luke explained, his words muffled against her shoulder.

"Shhh," Susanne comforted, petting his hair. "I'll talk to your father. Your training is very important. You are the future king of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear, after all."

Luke gave a slow nod, and Susanne sighed silently. They both knew that Duke Crymson Herzog fon Fabre rarely changed his mind, and never without first two very good approximations of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. (In the first, he was the force. In the second, he was the object.)

But for Luke, she would remind her lord husband just how good her archery was, Susanne thought with uncharacteristic fierceness.

Luke was so attached to his teacher, she mused. But that was only natural. Luke had so few people in his life – herself, Natalia, Guy, and Master Van. Like Natalia, Luke had been locked up too much, too isolated. It was no way to live, not even for a future king. Especially not for a future king.

The cool evening air made her breath come short and her head spin for a moment, but Susanne refused to let that deter her. She was the sister of the King and wife of the Duke, and there was little any of the servants could do to stop her from marching into the castle, if she so willed… but that wasn't how she had learned to do things.

Instead, she had the maids uncover her old bows and pack them up. Putting on a rosy-cheeked, endearingly excited face, she insisted to Ramdas, "I must show them to Natalia! We had such a lovely talk today. No, I absolutely can't wait for tomorrow. What if my health takes a turn for the worst? I feel so much better now, but tomorrow may be another bad day. And Natalia has her own duties and studies to attend to!"

Ramdas shrugged helplessly and arranged an escort, which she managed to talk down to only a trio of White Knights. ("This is Baticul. I was born and raised here. If we're not safe here in our capital, amidst our own people, then where?")

They took a side entrance. ("It's so late. I don't want to trouble anyone. And it'll take so long, with all the announcements and ceremony. I just want to visit my dear niece, you understand, right?")

Once they made it to the private wing of the castle, where only Natalia and Ingobert lived, Susanne waved away even the three White Knights. ("We women just can't talk freely with men listening!") With the help of a pair of maids, she found Natalia and together they disappeared into the girl's suite.

With only a subtle cue, Natalia revealed that her father and the Duke were locked up in the king's chambers. Susanne had been planning to take a walk and run into her husband no matter where he and her brother were, but this was just made it all too easy.

"I'll just drop by to say hello," she told Natalia, gently squeezing her small hand.

Natalia blushed faintly in happiness. "But Father does not wish to be bothered when he's in a private meeting, especially with the Duke. Not by _anyone_," she said seriously, with a solemn, slightly unhappy air that said she had been included in "anyone".

"I'll just nip by and leave them be if they're busy," Susanne assured and stepped out into the corridor.

Her good fortune held. The corridors were deserted, and she easily slipped into the king's section of the wing. Lifting up her skirt, she stepped lightly, her steps muffled by the thick carpets. No need to give them warning, a chance to marshal their arguments.

The door didn't squeak as she opened it and slipped inside. She could hear their voices from further in the suite.

She straightened, put on a bland smile and-

"-going to die."

_Who?_

"A happy childhood is all we can give him."

_A child was going to die?_

"It's a waste. You know what is written in the Score. It's not by his swordsmanship that Luke will serve Kimlasca. He has no need for a sword instructor, especially not one of Grants' caliber. And that man has far too much influence on the boy."

_Luke?..._

"Luke will bring unprecedented prosperity to Kimlasca…"

"His death will."

_Luke is going to die. _

_It's in the Score_.

_They know Luke will die, and they will let it happen._

_It's in the Score._

Luke_ is going to _die.

_It's in the Score._

Clapping her hand over her mouth, to hold back a scream or maybe vomit, Susanne backed away. She didn't make it to the door, backing into a dark corner and sliding to the floor. The men's voices blurred and soon fell silent as she tried to… to…

This was why a Score of Death was not to be revealed. How could she – how could any mother go on, knowing her child would die? Score or not, _Score or not_… Susanne had never been a heretic. She had married _just as the Score dictated_, she had borne a son – a boy or royal blood with red hair, called the Light of the Sacred Flame – _just as the Score dictated_.

And now, now… the Score wanted to take her son away.

For prosperity, by his death.

_She couldn't breathe_.

Susanne fumbled in her pockets, her fingers scrambling around the medicine bottle she carried. Her knuckles were white as she clutched it, her hands shaking too much to uncork it.

She didn't hear the footsteps, but she felt them resonate through the wooden flooring. They passed by her, too preoccupied to see her hunched figure in the deep shadows, half-hidden by a cabinet. The door closed heavily behind her husband. It was final, like a funeral bell, like a tomb being shut.

_Luke's funeral. Luke's tomb. _

Had they already made all the arrangements? Had they already planned their speeches, lamenting the untimely death of their heir to the throne?

It all made a sick sort of sense, she thought almost feverishly. Why her husband seemed too distant from his only child. Why her brother treated his heir, his daughter's fiancée so off-handedly.

And poor Natalia! She honestly adored Luke so much. Susanne had felt such joy watching the two of them. They were so different from her own impersonal, arranged relationship. Little had she known that Natalia and Luke would never have a happy life together.

No. No, no, no…

Why? Why?

It wasn't right. It wasn't _fair_.

_It was the Score._

It wasn't _fair_. This couldn't be Luke's fate. Luke, who would lead Kimlasca into prosperity.

It couldn't be Luke's fate.

She wouldn't let it.

_It was the Score._ _She couldn't change it. She didn't have the power…_

Power…

The power to save her son…

Ingobert sighed heavily, covering his eyes with one hand. He almost staggered as he walked through his suite. "It is the Score. It is Yulia's will," he repeated to himself, pulling out a heavily bottle of amber liquid and a glass. "It is necessary, for Kimlasca's prosperity."

"What is?" Susanne asked, coming up quietly behind him. Ingobert flinched, spinning around to face her, but his sister only regarded him guilelessly. Seeing his startled expression, she looked apologetic. "I apologize for coming in uninvited, brother. I had just come to visit Natalia. She said my husband was with you, so I thought we could walk back together... but it seems he has already gone."

"Ah, yes," Ingobert managed, turning away from her just a bit too quickly. "Yes, he just left."

"You don't look well," Susanne noted, stepping up to him and taking the bottle and the glass. "Let me," she murmured.

Swallowing uncomfortably, Ingobert looked away.

She poured gracefully and turned to put the bottle away. Her sleeves hid the small medicine flask she uncorked and tipped into the glass. _"Be careful with the dosage,"_ the doctor had warned her, _"too much may be deadly. All medicines are poisons, after all."_

Swirling the glass, she passed it to her brother with a faint smile. He accepted without looking and drank it down, bottoms up. She took the glass back and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"You should rest," she told him. "You look tired. The crown of Kimlasca is a heavy burden to bear."

Ingobert nodded, his expression not easing at her comforting smile. He didn't notice that she took the glass with her when she departed. The crown – the power of the king – was a heavy burden, indeed. He would be soon relieved of it.

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End file.
